Christmas underway? Check.

Here at my house, Christmas is underway.

* * *

Outside lights up? Check.

(Probably more to be added, I don't know. B added outdoor decorations right up to Christmas last year! Personally, I'm still missing the sparkling snowmen out there.)

* * *

Inside decorations up? Check.

(Well, I need to add two more Santas. I haven't put everything out that I usually do but there's enough.

We'll see if I hold firm on this or if I'm still putting things out clear up to Christmas. I hope not.)

* * *

Our "Shiny Tree" up and decorated? Check.

(Only shiny things can go on that tree! Thanks to L and friend NB for decorating it. I think they thought they'd bitten off more than they could chew. Me and my rules--tree topper and ribbon first, then character ornaments,

then large round ornaments, then gradually smaller round ornaments, then metallic bows, then picks, and whatever you do, decorate the whole tree, even if no one can see the back side. They opted not to put on a big box of ornaments. That was fine with me. I feel like that every year, too.)

My German ornament tree up and decorated? Check.

(It is up on a table so the dog cannot chew the wooden ornaments! I love to decorate this tree myself. I love unwrapping each and every German ornament. The tree doesn't look quite like I'd wish but I haven't had time to figure out what is wrong--which is good because it might mean I think something needs to be purchased to complete it. Being OCD is tough with things like this.)

* * *

The advent tree out and slowly being decorated as we count down to Christmas? Check.

(Thanks Cori for that fun tree--it is a must-do every year!)

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Other little tree up and decorated? Check.

(Just a 2 foot tree--L wanted it set up.)

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Christmas cards underway? Check.

(I pick up our picture insert tomorrow. Must buy stamps! Labels and letters are ready!)

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Neighbor gifts underway? Check.

(L is punching out the gift tags as I type.)

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Christmas shopping started? Check.

(With more to go.)

* * *

Thinking about emulating my friend QV and starting already to wrap gifts? Check.

(Still just "thinking" about wrapping! Nice idea, though!)

* * *

Thinking about baking? Check.

(I think this every year but every year I'm somehow derailed. Maybe someday . . . or maybe it will really happen this year. Who knows?! Sometimes we've received so many goodies that I couldn't stand the thought of one more calorie-laden snack in this house!)

* * *

Amaryllis starting to bloom? Check.

($1.00 each at Ace; we bought two.)

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Wishing, like I do every year at Christmas, that I could go to Germany? Check.

(I will probably never go back but I have wished it every single Christmas for the last twenty-four years, and I think that wish is growing with intensity as the years pass by, perhaps as the impossibility of the wish has become increasingly clear.)

* * *

Christmas underway? Check.

Still more to do before Christmas can come? Check!

[Completely confidential note to self: NEVER, NO NEVER ADD PICTURES TO BLOG AFTER YOU'VE ADDED TEXT!)

More blah, blah, blah

This should be a post about a cat but this is just a post about what I've been up to with a picture of our cat Specks (or should I say our cat "S"?!) ;o) yanking something from under L's door and this is a picture to use when there's no other picture to use!

With most of the furniture out of the family room for Thanksgiving, we decided to have our wood floors refinished. This required leaving the furniture out of the family room AND taking anything else off the floor. The floor was done on Thursday but we had to be out all day Thursday and until later on Friday because of the caustic smell. We stayed at my mother's--glad we had some place handy to go. Saturday we set about trying to restore order. Things are still not quite back together. Unfortunately, it is infinitely easier to undo and dismantle things than to restore things to their rightful places. But the floor does look good! Now we'll just go ahead and neglect it for another few years! :o)

I've had some good shopping days where I've really enjoyed myself but not bought anything to speak of for Christmas. I did find something for B to give me (and I bought it!). :o) I also found something for Tyler. Bryan found something he wanted and bought it. That is the extent of my Christmas preparation. My trees aren't even set up because of the refinishing of the floors and Thanksgiving (too much moving of furniture to have trees in the way).

Next on my list of things to do is to get ready for the personal progress evening at my house on Tuesday. Do you have any suggestions for snacks? We've (1) dipped chocolate, (2) had white chocolate popcorn, (3) eaten a cheese ball, crackers and veggies, (4) had ice cream sandwiches, (5) made sandwiches for lunch and had chips on the side, (6) had a breakfast, and two other evenings (7 & 8) with food (and I can't recall the food--maybe donuts or cookies?? Maybe melon and grapes??). I have more things to do regarding Young Women and somewhere in there I will do something about (1) decorating the inside of the house for Christmas and (2) finding a few more presents.

This morning my mother looked nice and had good color to her face. I attended the church meeting with her at her building. She is still declining. She is very confused and often sleeps. As of a week ago Friday, she weighed eighty pounds (and on an accurate scale finally). The hospice nurse said the next step in her decline that he is watching for is when she just stops eating.

Well, I'm off to watch the Christmas Broadcast from Salt Lake City.

Some things I've been up to lately

I like to use pictures with my blog posts. However, for a person who carries a camera in her purse everywhere she goes, I am not very good at remembering to use it. With that in mind, I took this picture about a month ago when B and I were walking the dog, intending to save the photo for just such a night as this--when I want to post a bunch of blah, blah, blah about nothing in particular and want a photo to go along with all that blah, blah, blah. Viola--I am ready.

Tonight we had our Young Men/Young Women Christmas party (yep, I didn't take pictures). I was in charge of it (or the Laurels were but none of the Laurel presidency attended). It was a fun night. We played games. I think the game that was the biggest hit was one that one of the other leaders invented for the evening. We all sat in a circle, each took turns rolling a die, anyone who got a six ran into the middle and put on welding gloves. Then that person had to try to unwrap a package that had been wrapped about twenty times. If you were the last to unwrap it, you would win whatever was inside. There were two dice going around separately. It was very fun and funny. Even the leaders got into it. We had a white elephant gift exchange. We brought cans of food and donated them to the bishop for needy people in the ward. We had donuts and milk for our refreshments. And I didn't think to take pictures. At these activities, I'm too busy managing the universe, I suppose.

I have gone activity to activity to activity--finishing one, starting on the other, trying to look ahead and keep things in motion--probably all year. So many activities. Always something to do and always something on the horizon that I need to work toward. In recent memory, in October I had the Evening in Excellence.

Here is a photo showing the decorations--this photo just does not do it justice. Even though the colored material seems small in comparison to the gym, they are taller than the average person and when walking in the room, the decorations appeared fuller and more interesting than this picture shows. Anyway, this was a lot of work. The theme was something about the Country Fair in Excellence. I delegated parts of it but I had the decorations and the games--the main things. After this was over in October, my next big thing (with 1000 little things in between) was the Recognition Evening in November.

This is the picture of the refreshment table. My counselors made the value signs (although the blue one is MIA in this photo). We had ice cream (white=faith) and candy and things in the value colors to sprinkle on the ice cream. I borrowed this idea from my very talented sister-in-law Cori. It was particularly a hit with the little kids who came. The girls said we should do the "value color" idea with fruit. That sounds good, too. We had four special speakers and all of them did a wonderful job. I felt like this activity went well.

I asked a wonderful woman to substitute for my lesson this Sunday. I had to off-load something. My next big thing is that I host a personal progress evening at my house next Tuesday. My own kids hate it when I do the personal progress at our house because they have to help clean. I need to think of some kind of refreshments that we haven't had this year and make them--and I'm running out of ideas for food I'm capable of making and capable of thinking up. Then we do baptisms that Friday and I am the only female adult driver (so I can't get sick or have something come up). Then I have a presentation the Sunday before Christmas, along with the presidency and advisors (I have my five minutes already prepared). Then some leaders, girls and I are delivering gifts to the widows in our ward on the 3rd Tuesday. Then, then, then, then, then. I'm leaving stuff out of this recitation and I haven't even gotten to the end of the month.

Fun and interesting times--never a dearth of things to do--never.

"Let us here observe, that a religion that does not require the sacrifice of all things, never has power sufficient to produce the faith necessary unto life and salvation . . . ." Lectures on Faith, 6:7a.